Siri; Apple’s trump card for this year?

With the iPhone sales slumping over the past few years, all eyes are on Apple to announce its next game-changer move. Apple’s Annual Software Developers Conference is going live this Monday and it is expected that Apple will have major announcements for the event. It is expected that Siri will be going center-stage and play a pivotal role in bringing Apple back on its feet.

Of course, it cannot be expected that the conference will entirely revolve around Siri since Apple has to unveil a plethora of advancements in terms of their devices and a probable redesign of their music service. Due to the collision between Apple and the FBI, a few months ago, it is also possible that Apple might be highlighting key security measures to protect the end user’s personal data.

However, AI is the new tech battleground for all tech companies with Google and Microsoft bringing their own virtual assistants to the table. Apple made a huge uproar when it unveiled Siri five years ago, however ever since then tech companies have added interesting features to their “intelligent” virtual assistants which has downsized Siri’s impact on the industry.

This Monday, Apple is expected to announce and demonstrate upgrades to Siri. However, the main point of concern is whether it would be enough to keep up with big tech companies who are constantly improvising their digital services.

Chris Monberg, co-founder of Boomtrain, a firm that enables integration of AI software with online retailers, lauded Google Now as being an assistant that provides better notifications and much more proactive recommendations.

Siri, however, remains competitive as long as you stay bound to Apple’s ecosystem. For instance, Siri may not scan your mail for useful information if you are using Google’s Gmail application, however, put Apple calendar in the mix and Siri will start offering suggestions and tailor-made content suited to the calendar entry.

It has been noted that the reason behind Siri not being too proactive might be the fact that Apple has been unwilling to pry into personal information of their consumers, whereas Google enjoys a competitive edge here primarily due to the fact that it can utilize its search engine results for consumer trends.

Apple has declined to comment on what their plans for Siri are, but recently the company acquired a startup that creates AI specifically for mobile devices. It is expected that Siri will get more personality and might also get “relaxed restrictions” to allow it to operate more freely in the Apple ecosystem.